


In the Moondark

by mrtvejpes



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Caretaking, Dark But Still Somehow Soft, Fighting Before Fucking, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wall Sex, Werewolves, kiho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 04:42:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18087659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrtvejpes/pseuds/mrtvejpes
Summary: Minhyuk had told him how hot Kihyun's mouth was mid-kiss when loneliness burned.





	In the Moondark

**Author's Note:**

> For M.

It had finally happened.

Hoseok clutched the cameo choker at his throat. Rustling like the branches above, a black lace band crumpled under his fingertips. It was the softest thing Hoseok had touched in days. The warmest, too. He grazed the carved cameo in broken circles, knowing its texture so well that his thoughts ran elsewhere as his thumb rubbed over the creases in the slippery surface of the shell.

The familiarity came with wearing the choker for a long, long while already. It was easier to count his kind when they were recognizable at sight.

The tight band around his throat that branded him had become the thing he knew the best. He tapped at it in silence, seeking some sort of safety in how familiar the labyrinth of reliefs felt under his fingers.

Nearly as familiar as the name on the tombstone.

Minhyuk had always said that it would happen, and now it had. They'd found him. _Finally_ , Minhyuk would've smiled; only the dead didn't smile and neither did the stones that bore their names.

The summer sky had blackened. Balmy, it weighed down on Hoseok like velvet. There was no moon. Black branches stood against an even blacker sky.

Nature seemed to get the memo, dressing herself in black at Minhyuk's funeral.

Birds sang. It would've been nice if they were blackbirds.

It would've been apt.

Hoseok hadn't been to a graveyard at night before, at least as far as he could remember. During the day, the place lay coated in grey, washed out of colour and at the same time oversaturated, sharp objects and blossoms and voices everywhere. It teemed with sad people looking at sad-looking graves, and everything was quiet there, just quiet.

So, really, like now.

Hoseok looked around, slowed down by stupor. He read the names and dates that stared back at him from the dark. A glistening chunk of marble read “Old Age.” Another one said “Sickness.” Most of them were small gravestones with no flowers or gilt. They simply said “Unknown Soldier.”

Minhyuk's tombstone had more to say, just as the person who lay under it always had.

_Lee Minhyuk, liquidated lycanthrope no. 771._

He would've appreciated the alliteration.

 

 

 

A kid who must've been Changkyun cracked the door to the bomb shelter open and peeked outside. The slit barely let Hoseok see his hooked nose. All he saw was the boy's eye. It was as black as the rest of this tireless day.

“I'm looking for Kihyun,” said Hoseok.

War had stripped him of pleasantries. So did the brand on his throat. After all, who'd ever seen a polite werewolf?

Changkyun stared at him. Hoseok's already hooded eyelids grew heavier. He hadn't slept or eaten in forty hours. Forty-one, possibly. The watch he still wore on his wrist didn't work anymore. The glass was missing.

“Does he live here?” asked Hoseok, boring into the kid.

“Who are you?”

“I'm... I used to be Minhyuk's friend.” Hoseok's eyes stayed dry. “He's in the Nam District now.”

Everyone knew this euphemism, even those who'd been in hiding for years. When someone was in the Nam District, it meant they were buried there.

The ink of Changkyun's eyes turned glossy. Then hard-shelled.

Hoseok watched the cold seep in. He'd seen something similar not long ago. Hadn't he? A glistening chunk of marble. Was it?

“You're lying,” said Changkyun.

“Am I?” His hands didn't shake as he fished for the necklace that had belonged to Minhyuk. The pendant that hung from it had a softer relief than Hoseok's. Minhyuk had smoothed the carving in the pearly shell into nothingness over the years.

Pushing the door open to snatch the thin strip of silk, Changkyun stepped outside. He brought the cameo closer to inspect it. His face hardened. He was a tough kid, this one.

He'd learned the hard way just as the rest of them, Hoseok reckoned.

Conflict clear in his body language, Changkyun glanced up and back down. He kneaded the silk with his thumb, the absent movement opening up Hoseok's memory in the worst ways because he'd been the one to do that only the day before yesterday. He'd felt the heat of Minhyuk's skin soak the silk.

He'd had someone to hold him when he transformed as moonshine scorched his muscles and shaped them into something he wasn't.

Something he hadn't always been.

“Was it the soldiers?” asked Changkyun, still playing with the pendant as thought he could rub some life into it.

“No. The government.”

Changkyun let out a harsh but hushed sound. “Fuck.”

The dark seemed to beat between them. Hoseok stood in place, sensing the stifling air go watery, wetting his skin. He was sweating, but his ears were cold.

“Wait here,” said the kid suddenly. It could've been curt and Hoseok wouldn't have recognized it. To him, it sounded like a blessing.

His kind wasn't welcome at the door.

His kind was killed on sight.

He was prepared to wait for hours, but Changkyun was back in a blink. Several shadows followed him, flooding the steely walls and filling the tunnel that led inside the shelter. Hoseok heard clicks and clacks of guns. He wasn't afraid. A werewolf was better off dead than alone.

It turned out that Changkyun brought three more men with him. For safety, probably. Nothing new. Hoseok stared them down with their gears and guns and faces that seemed ten years older than they were. The men didn't look any more rested than him, though not as starved.

But unlike them, Hoseok took care of his body although he couldn't take care of his stomach. He was bigger than either of them. One on one, he'd be able to wrestle them down – had he cared to.

The last remaining thing he cared for in this world was the necklace.

It still rested in Changkyun's hand, cushioned by a bit of chub the boychild hadn't lost yet. Hoseok watched the dull sheen of the cameo for a couple of seconds. Then he looked up.

“He left a message inside,” said Hoseok. His voice was barely a voice anymore because with or without Minhyuk, he had few opportunities to speak. Reaching out carefully, Hoseok brushed the burnished carving. It used to be a dog's head; now it could almost pass as the head of a human. “He said it was for Hyunwoo or Kihyun. Whichever of you survives.”

Hoseok addressed Minhyuk's last will to all of them, letting the men take the message in. He sized the men up to determine who was who. Minhyuk had always described Hyunwoo as huge – larger than Hoseok, even – but there was nobody who fit that description.

When describing Kihyun, Minhyuk would talk about anything else but what he looked like.

Eyes on the pendant, the men drew nearer to Changkyun, standing like solemn trees ready to close in and protect a roe deer in danger. The boy glanced up once, as if asking for permission, and turned the cameo upside down.

The world seemed to bate its breath. The black sky. The blackbirds. The black silk ribbon that stopped rustling in Changkyun's clutch.

Expressionless – and how well they'd taught this child to lose all emotions – Changkyun pushed his thumbs against the underside of the cameo. The men waited. Changkyun's bones went white. And then, a click. The cameo opened like a locket.

Inside was a dog-eared piece of paper. Changkyun stared at it, not so expressionless anymore, the tips of his fingers betraying a slight quiver.

“I'll take it,” said one of the men gently.

Something sharp went through Hoseok's rib. He didn't know if it was because a stranger was about to touch Minhyuk's last words, or because he'd grown so unused to gentleness.

Overheard gentleness was as big of a threat as the real one. It could've convinced Hoseok that he was human if he listened to it long enough.

The gentle-voiced man took the locket and Hoseok noted that he also had gentle hands. He pulled the paper out bit by bit, taking care not to rip it.

Hoseok suddenly couldn't bear to see the paper unfold. He knew Minhyuk's scrawl and didn't want to think of this moment if one day he got to go through his journals again. His gaze shot up.

Not uttering a sound or a word, the man studied the note in deep thought. He had a feminine face and a cauliflower ear. The gear he wore gave him an air of strength even though his wrists and throat were slim; too slim for someone who was supposed to fight for the Resistance.

Hoseok read the man as the man read Minhyuk's message.

It took awhile. The man skimmed through the lines several times, making sure not to miss anything. Eventually, he folded the paper back.

“Come in,” he told Hoseok. A residue of the tone he'd used with Changkyun lingered there somewhere, softening the silence.

Hoseok _shrank_.

“I – I can't.”

“Of course you can. That's why you're here.”

“No. No, you don't get it. I can't go in – you have to come with me.”

He addressed the man as if he'd already decided in his mind that this was Kihyun.

And it must've been. Minhyuk had told Hoseok how Kihyun chirped even at his sternest. Told him about the way Kihyun could vivisect people's thoughts without really trying. The way he would go through layers of grime till the scrutinized person had no option but to turn themselves over to him, open and waiting to be taken in or turned out. Minhyuk had told him how hot Kihyun's mouth was mid-kiss when loneliness burned.

Kihyun stood there cool and unmoving, his mouth bloodless. Only that voice had a colour in it – a tad bit of temperature.

“I'm not leaving,” said Kihyun and gestured to the group. “I'm the last thing they have.”

You're the last thing _I_ have, Hoseok wanted to say. But he didn't.

“I can't stay here,” he pressed instead. “I'm – I'm like him. I'm like Minhyuk. And he couldn't stay here either. He left to keep you safe –”

“And look what happened. He turned someone else. And he then died somewhere behind the enemy lines without ever fucking saying sorry for leaving.”

_Still_ the voice was gentler than anything Hoseok had witnessed in years.

He hated that it was so easy: to yearn to go inside and hope that maybe the moon might never rise again.

He hated that he was willing to risk their lives for a warm word and a lukewarm meal.

“I could kill you all if I go in,” whispered Hoseok.

“You won't kill anybody,” said Kihyun, hefting the rifle that hung from his shoulder. “There's a hideout in the basement we built for Minhyuk if he ever came back. It will keep us safe from you and you safe from us.”

His throat dried up.

From what Hoseok had heard, the Hyunwoo guy would have been better for this – this  _task_ . Hyunwoo would have been the slightest bit more ruthless. A soldier, not a saviour. He would have gone with Hoseok and he would've killed him when the time had come. He would have killed Hoseok if he had ever gotten out of control.

Minhyuk had told him that. He had told Hoseok all about the things Hyunwoo had done to keep the others alive and the things Kihyun would do to make their hard-earned lives liveable.

In his mind, Hoseok had formed a clear picture, a triptych of sorts where he stood in the middle and these two faceless men shielded him from each side, one offering Hoseok one more day on earth and the other offering to end his days once and for all.

But at times, Hoseok didn't want to die.

Throat thrumming with a heartbeat whose presence he hadn't noticed for way too long, Hoseok looked at the men and at the shadowy tunnel behind them. Downstairs, he wouldn't harm anyone – if they locked him well. Downstairs, he wouldn't have to fear that the government could get him. The ones to end him would be his allies.

Downstairs, he might waste away in peace, like people with meek hearts longed to.

It didn't take Hoseok long to make the decision.

He stepped inside the shelter.

 

 

 

Hoseok only saw the black of the hideout when the moon was at its fullest. On those days, he thrashed within the windowless walls, choking on stale air. On the scent of the man upstairs. The stench of meat which still swarmed with life became a part of him. He teemed. Smelled them. He thought of splitting their flesh with every quiver of nostrils.

He'd yet to turn this close to people who weren't his kind.

This close to humans.

He didn't count bodies that had already been dead, nor torn up deer carcasses, nor birds shrieking their last songs as their bones snapped.

Becoming his other half without Minhyuk was hard enough, but the smells that poured to him even through the thickest sheets of steel and concrete took away the last of his reason. The sweetness of Jooheon's sweat. The faint smell of sleepiness that clung to Hyungwon and reminded Hoseok of how pillows smelled after several sultry nights. Changkyun's body with that child-like tang to it – pure but sometimes unwashed.

The scent of Kihyun's skin.

Minhyuk had never told Hoseok how difficult it was – not to break it. Not to bruise it with his teeth. Not to beg to be let in, at least a little bit in. But perhaps that was why Minhyuk had always said so little about Kihyun. Because there was so much to be said.

Like the seemingly unimportant detail that Kihyun was the smallest of the group and yet he led them all. That to look at his body bordered with grief whenever Kihyun took off the gear and sat down all tired, a slip of a man, a shell that had been drained of all its contents and colours and even of all sounds. That he still had strength to kill with his bare hands regardless of his size.

That he was so full of care that he forgot to take care of himself sometimes, and Hoseok had to carry him to the barrack-styled bedroom that lay upstairs for easy escape, the tiny body whose weight he barely felt folding like a book in his arms.

Those were the only times Hoseok dared to touch him. The moderation he imposed on himself helped very little because Hoseok had already learned what it was like to have Kihyun's skin under his hands, and now he couldn't unfeel it.

He howled in the hideout each month for a whole night, calling for Kihyun and calling for Minhyuk and calling out to his human self that hung somewhere at the back of his mind. Nobody answered. Some nights were worse than others, and Hoseok raged then, going as far as to dent the metal door of the hideout a couple of times. He hadn't broken it down yet. He didn't think he'd be able to, as a man or as an animal.

The dents, though, told another story. Sometimes it was more than Jooheon could stomach when he walked inside in the morning and saw just how mighty Hoseok could become when he wasn't himself.

So the basement was where Hoseok lived one day out of thirty. The rest of the month he meandered about the bomb shelter, wondering whether there would be a razor-thin slice of meat in their rations that day, or perhaps tomorrow. His footsteps were laced with the knowledge that he shouldn't be here – not just upstairs, but _here_. Amongst them.

Amongst the living.

Hoseok was a stranger to this place. Not a guest, because he wasn't welcome. And not a freeloader, because he dealt with whatever needed to be dealt with, from making guns to using them. He wasn't an enemy either. Just a stranger.

Even after a year had passed and Hoseok had begun to feel at home here, he was not one of them. But that was alright. He hadn't forgotten that they were different breeds.

 

 

 

Kihyun had three more people to take care of – people he loved – so Hoseok came last.

But when the moon was no brighter than a sliver, Hoseok came first.

 

 

 

Minhyuk had always provided for him. In small ways. In ways that hadn't been nearly enough, but that had kept them both alive and sane and, from time to time, sated. He would bring home bread and relatively clean water and supplies they needed to stitch themselves up after a full moon or a raid.

He would also provide for Hoseok in other ways.

Kihyun didn't like those ways. Didn't quite like what it took. Something told Hoseok that Kihyun hadn't done it since Minhyuk had left.

Either way, Kihyun got back on track fast enough. He took care of Hoseok without being asked to because he'd been through it before; he'd been there with Minhyuk. He knew what the crescent moon did to a werewolf.

Kihyun disliked those nights. Hoseok could smell it on him. It was either that, or he hated the mornings that came after because daylight made everything worse. (Because he didn't just have to face Hoseok, but also his friends who'd heard the sounds of fighting and fucking.)

Hoseok wasn't sure; he just knew that Kihyun did it all anyway. He was a caretaker before he was a person; a provider before he was a man; and a saviour before he was himself. That's what Hoseok saw when he looked at Kihyun, anyway.

(Hoseok _did_ see a person and a man too. He saw Kihyun as he was, neurosis and unhealthy eating habits and all. That was why he could discern the rest in the first place. Had he not studied Kihyun the way he did, he would've overlooked what was _beneath_ the strictly utilitarian facade he put up and which ultimately applied more to himself than those he looked after.)

A person who only craved his care and didn't give a rat's ass to return it in some way, somehow, would have missed it. They would have missed that Kihyun divided responsibilities equally amongst others and yet always managed to be the odd one out and draw the worst task. Or that when the others slept four hours, he only slept two. Or the way he portioned their rations. Measuring, measuring, but not really eating any.

They would have missed how utterly careless he was about himself.

At first it softened something inside Hoseok, and then it broke him, and then the broken parts grew tight together and turned into a steely seam. That seam extended over his whole self and hardened, the softness gone and replaced by a raw need to grapple with Kihyun. Hold him down. Hold him.

At some point, it got as unhealthy as Kihyun's habits.

 

 

 

When Hoseok thought about it, he had to admit that in hindsight it made sense why they fought so hard, and always so wordlessly. He'd kind of caused it.

He was the one to keep fighting.

 

 

 

The sickle moon hung somewhere above the bomb shelter, unseen, the blissful black of the basement soothing Hoseok's head. The rest of his body tensed and tensed, though, never unwinding, never cooling down. The inner part of his throat scorched with swallowed groans.

He had told Kihyun that he would become like this when the moon was at its weakest (because that was when Hoseok was at his weakest too), and Kihyun had said, yes, I know, it used to be the same with Minhyuk.

Hoseok strained his ears to hear Kihyun come downstairs. Even the echo of his footsteps resonated right through Hoseok's lungs, as light as it was since Kihyun _barely fucking ate_.

As Hoseok lay curled, anticipation clogged him from mouth to core. He'd give anything to be touched at that moment. Not a second later. Not a heartbeat later. Now.

Kihyun walked in. Silhouetted by the darkness filling the doorframe, he seemed smaller. He wasn't wearing his gear. The padded vest, strapped belts, and leg warmers gone, he looked ready to be taken apart.

And yet he locked the door, undressed, and crossed the temporary cell – while lubing his cock.

Twitching, Hoseok sat up. Something about the sight struck him as wrong; arousing but _wrong_ , because he had expected it to go the other way round.

Minhyuk would get as needy as Hoseok during this time of the month, but he would always take. He would spread Hoseok nice and do him face-down and fuck him until his cum frothed down his hole. It was natural, then, that Hoseok had sort of assumed that that was how it used to be between him and Kihyun. That Minhyuk would be the one to take. And that Hoseok would take Minhyuk's part.

He so badly wanted to take Minhyuk's part because there had been something – something between the two –

Shivering, Hoseok held Kihyun's hips to halt him.

The too-small man towered above him like a block of marble. A dainty deity. His cock glistened, darker at the tip. His hip bones cut sharp into Hoseok's palms, shaped just like two sickles, like the sickle in the sky.

Hoseok started to grapple with Kihyun then, and in a sense, he never stopped. His body rang and craved to open up and take Kihyun in, warm him up with his mouth. Let his blazing tongue cushion the column of his cock from below and suck until Kihyun came.

But he stood up instead, and pushed.

“Easy,” whispered Kihyun.

Easy wasn't going to cut it, though. Going easy was the last thing Hoseok could do.

He'd tried easy. He'd told Kihyun to wear one more layer of clothing before venturing out for supplies and ammunition, only for Kihyun to give the coat to Hyungwon. He'd offered to take more shifts guarding the place so Kihyun could sleep, and got told to mind his own health. He'd eaten only half of his dinner to see Kihyun carefully wrap up the rest and tuck it into the freezer. Kihyun had looked the same like that neatly preserved scrap. All tinfoil and cellophane. All layers.

That was how he felt to the touch too. A lightweight. All tinfoil and cellophane.

All layers.

Hoseok marched Kihyun in front of himself, forcing him to move backwards and tugging him back. _Slow down, slow down –_ but the murmur turned Hoseok frantic instead. He rammed Kihyun against the door, holding him there by the shoulders. By that time Kihyun was pushing back.

The thing about the sickle moon was that it weakened him until he was at his lowest point, so when Kihyun shoved him, Hoseok began to shake. Stumbling, he grabbed onto Kihyun's waist and trailed his hands up. He used his whole body against Kihyun, pinning him against the steel. It worked for a minute – but only for that minute.

Gathering his strength as he lay low in Hoseok's grip, Kihyun forced him off, flipped them, and pressed Hoseok to the wall. First his back. Then he took Hoseok by the waist and turned him around.

Kihyun was frail. On any other day, Hoseok would've broken out of his hold, even if it was the tightest chokehold and Hoseok's hands were tied.

This wasn't that day.

Kihyun kicked his thighs apart, his slicked cock snug between Hoseok's ass cheeks. They stalled, both breathing hard, time ticking.

Arching into it, Hoseok rubbed himself onto Kihyun's flushed tip. He felt the wet, cool rush of lube on his hole as it wetted his rim. He panted. He heard himself say something – something that pulled Kihyun closer.

His muscles tightened as Kihyun pushed inside him. Ever so slowly, he eased himself all the way in and started to thrust without waiting or warning. Hoseok planted his palms on the wall.

It was Minhyuk all over again. But rougher, because this time Hoseok used his strength back. Bitter.

Sweeter.

 

 

 

Kihyun only ever took him like that afterwards. Against the wall. Pressed face-first into the colourless door, fingers sliding and scraping over metal. Never without a combat.

They didn't throw punches, but there was enough tension to slow down bloodstream when they gripped each other. Enough to bruise.

He came the hardest when Kihyun broke him down like a horse and then held him up for the longest time as Hoseok sagged in his arms, chest burning and chafing against the sweaty steal under it.

And after that, another month worth of waiting.

 

 

 

The toughest times came when they desperately needed more medicine because Jooheon had come across contaminated water. Kihyun was the least affected – (or so he said) – and as such he prepared himself to set off outside tonight.

Of course, Hoseok did all in his power to keep him inside and go instead.

Of course, Kihyun wouldn't have it.

Hoseok had let himself forget how bleak the world above the bomb shelter was, with its burned down buildings and charred trees and wide, open plains that grew no plants, and instead of seeds were full of buried bodies. He wasn't looking forward to seeing it all again.

“Where's the closest hospital?” inquired Hoseok, hanging too close for comfort by Kihyun's side as he was putting on his protective gear. The clothes lent him some breadth. Hoseok did his best not to think of Kihyun lifting him up the wall looking like this. When he was dressed like this, Hoseok almost believed Kihyun would be able to do it.

“Not too far,” said Kihyun. He was brusque, not necessarily to cut the conversation off. He still had time before he had to go. He never went out in daylight anymore and neither did any of the guys. “I should be back soon.”

“That's not why I'm asking and you know it.”

“You're not going.”

“Said who?”

“Me, just now.”

“You're sick, Ki. You'll get worse if –”

“It's either me getting worse, or you getting shot.”

“ _You_ could get shot,” retorted Hoseok, his head and mouth growing hot. Spit thickened under his tongue. He hated when he burned like this. Like he'd been lying under a grey, soaked cloud without a single drop falling his way.

Kihyun spared him a glance. “You know that won't happen.”

“Why? Do you think that the government will politely hand you the pills we need and maybe some nice dried meat on top if they come across you?”

He wanted to laugh, wanted to laugh so bad, to show how ludicrous the idea was.

He'd lost the will to even smile.

“No. But they won't shoot me – or any of us, for that matter. They won't kill us on sight because they can still make soldiers out of us. They can still use us.” He grazed Hoseok's muscles with a fleeting but briefly pausing glance. Hoseok could just hear him ask inside that crowded head of his how come someone so strong was at the same time so lamblike. “Not you, though. They will put you down like a dog.”

“Like a wolf.”

“Don't.”

Hoseok missed a beat. “Why shouldn't I say it?” he said finally. “That's what I am.”

“You're a man.”

“That's not true, though,” murmured Hoseok. “You know that's not true.”

“It is.” Kihyun wound a belt around his waist and strapped it tight. Suddenly, he was tiny again. “I should know that the best.”

Hoseok let him leave that night. He sat in the kitchen and stared down the clock until Kihyun returned with a rucksack full of pills and needles and opaque little bottles. Hoseok helped him unpack. Tucked at the very bottom of the army backpack lay a rolled up lunar calendar.

He didn't dare to bring it up.

 

 

 

He'd learn to anticipate the crescent moon more than the full moon. To the same degree he also dreaded it. When the moon was full, so was Hoseok – full of storms that man-made words such as anger or wrath couldn't quite grasp. It went beyond that. Beyond murderous, even. It was the kind of hunger that blinded everything and anything inside Hoseok that wasn't the sheer wish to shred every living atom into pieces.

The crescent moon left him full too, and hurting, but the difference was that his human side was there to feel it.

When Kihyun filled him, Hoseok felt it. When his warmth filled him, he felt it. They waxed and waned and moved together, carried like stars across the sky. Like the dark and the crescent clicking into one.

And when Kihyun pulled out and the warmth drained out of him, Hoseok was just left gaping.

 

 

 

Kihyun was breathing hard beside him, shallow gasps telling the bare basement room that Hoseok had put up good a struggle before bending over.

Fucking was better after competing who got to strap the other down. He would back down from winning even on those days that he actually had enough energy to pay Kihyun back, but these bonsai-sized wars had Hoseok winded and wishing for more. He couldn't pry anything this close to intimate out of Kihyun in any other way. This was the path he knew, so he walked it.

In the least, he got to grasp onto Kihyun and kiss him until there was no air. Kiss him like he wanted to sear his mouth closed or open forever.

Ashen glow painted Kihyun's skin a sickly shade. He'd broken a sweat, and the dip between his collarbones and his throat were sticky. His stomach still clenched even after he'd rolled off Hoseok and stayed sprawled on his back.

Right. They'd done it on the actual mattress.

Hoseok groaned into the damp sheets. He wasn't really sure how it had happened. Who had shoved the other to the makeshift bed. Face buried in the mattress, Hoseok let the crumpled bed sheets and blankets bundle underneath him and leave prints on his tired skin. He was pulling in breaths as hard as Kihyun, though unlike him Hoseok was silent.

Cum ran down his crack. It hadn't gone cold yet.

Rubbing his face over the sheets, he gave Kihyun a sidelong glance. He looked healthy after sex. Healthier, anyway. A rosy colour lent his face some life and ink-stained his chest, running and spreading over his ribs.

Eventually, Kihyun swallowed his breathlessness down. He was a dead calm in the form of a man.

“It's lunar eclipse this month,” he rasped. Still so soft. As though he hadn't let Hoseok all but drain him a moment ago.

It came so unexpected that Hoseok didn't react right away.

Kihyun turned to him. He swallowed again, his throat hollowing at the base.

“You won't turn this month round,” he said, explaining to Hoseok what he had understood, but had yet to grasp in full.

“Okay,” said Hoseok, uncertain.

“No, that's more than okay.” Kihyun rolled onto his side, lying on his cauliflower ear. His head lolled a little before it tapped against Hoseok's, their foreheads touching. “Do you know what it means?”

A month worth of peace. Freedom on loan.

He would pay back, and sorely, but that didn't faze him. He was used to living under a condition. Lunar eclipse meant he would get to live for real, if only for a little while.

“I guess it means I can take you for a walk in the moonlight,” said Hoseok, his voice only a fragment of what it usually was.

It was Kihyun's turn to take a minute to get it. When he did, he lightly kicked Hoseok with his knobby knee, not putting any force into it.

“There will be no moonlight, you dummy, that's the point.”

“I will take you for a walk in the moondark then.”

Snorting, Kihyun kicked him for the second time, lighter than before. His eyes turned into half-moons. They were the only moons Hoseok could stomach to look at.

And look he did. He looked for so long that Kihyun's eyes evened out into their normal shape, a tad worn at the corners though always searching, always more alive than the rest of his body. Hoseok sensed his own eyes go glossy. He didn't really want to cry, nor did he. It felt more like a fever.

Kihyun pulled back and put a cupped palm over Hoseok's forehead.

“It's still there,” he commented. “Do you need me again?”

But Kihyun was wrong. It wasn't the crescent moon anymore that had heat coursing through Hoseok's flesh and skin like it was a tide and he a bleached shore.

He thought of the twenty-nine days he'd have to go without touching him, and he put his ass up.

Kihyun picked himself up on his elbow and slided over, laying into Hoseok, his cock still soft but growing heavier as he brushed it over the back of Hoseok's thigh. Soon it glided between his cheeks, the underside grazing Hoseok's rim as Kihyun dragged his hips up and down.

“You're leaking it all out,” murmured Kihyun. He must've meant the lube. The cum.

Hoseok shuddered. He reached behind and grabbed Kihyun by the back of his head, roughhousing him a bit. Tugging at his ear in what could have been a caress had Hoseok been gifted with gentle hands.

Moaning through his nose, Kihyun leaned into the touch. Sometimes it seemed that he wanted to get hurt. Hoseok tugged harder. He took in the suppleness of Kihyun's curled up ear, mapping the vulnerable waves of flesh that hid in his palm like a piece of worked dough. He adored it. Adored it. Adored him.

Ass up and pressed skin-to-skin against Kihyun, Hoseok ground into him, and Kihyun took the hint and rammed inside him in one rough motion.

The first thrust spread him full; not just his hole, everything. Even after the eleventh or twelfth time they'd been together – so fucking _few_ times – Kihyun had his way of splaying him all anew. He had a dormant rawness in him, packed in tinfoil and stacked away. Saved solely for Hoseok. His strength wasn't really physical. The only thing about him that was fairly fat was his cock, and Hoseok closed around it. He pushed back, his stomach taut and collecting tension. That cock alone could turn Hoseok to slush.

As they began to move in an united beat, Kihyun's hands on Hoseok's hips, Hoseok vaguely remembered he was supposed to fight it first.

He twisted his upper body to stare up at Kihyun. Like this, he clenched Kihyun even tighter, his muscles crushing him. The too-much pleasure etched into his expression, Kihyun sidled up to Hoseok to fuck into him better. Their hips crashed together. It would bruise, those tenderly cut hip bones that slapped into him at a rushed pace. He reached to wrap his thick arm around Kihyun's neck and pulled him into an open-lipped kiss.

Kihyun hissed a washed-out “Fuck” at him and shoved him back face-down, bringing his own body lower, deeper. He held Hoseok down, thighs sunken between his thighs and keeping them open.

His will gave out and seeped out of him, leaving Hoseok gorged. He chafed himself on the mattress, growing sensitive with every thrust – sensitive and yet somehow numb. The same too-much sensation he'd seen in Kihyun's expression caught up to him and he panted once, twice. And again. He was about to beg Kihyun to slow down when Kihyun hugged him from behind and came with a couple of choppy strokes. His load filled Hoseok, warm, bitter, and Kihyun's wet cock briefly slipped out before he buried himself back with a groan. He clung to Hoseok as he tried to finish him, mouth open and his upper lip lightly rolling against Hoseok's back.

Hoseok got there soon, whining rather than moaning. He smelled his own sweat and wondered how Kihyun could stand it as he basically tasted it with slow kisses planted between Hoseok's shoulder blades.

Kihyun took his sweet time pulling out. When he did, he propped himself up, still partially on top of Hoseok. He gently gripped Hoseok's ass with one hand and spread it to look at what he'd done. He circled the gaping mess he'd left there with a thumb.

“Are you trying to make it shut?” groaned Hoseok into the sheets.

He heard Kihyun's tiny titter.

“Sorry, it's just – it looks – I don't know.”

“Like a whole meal, I hope.”

“Don't be crude.”

Kihyun lay back down with a sharp smack on the crease between Hoseok's ass and thigh. He soldered himself to Hoseok's side and closed his eyes. He reached to caress the black cameo choker that wound around Hoseok's throat, tinkling with the clasp. Just shy of opening it and flinging it away.

“Better now?” he murmured, eyelids calm, not even flitting. How worn was he?

“All good,” said Hoseok thickly. He watched as Kihyun drifted off and drifted away.

“I think I'll crash here tonight,” he whispered.

Hoseok didn't say anything back. Kihyun wouldn't hear him anyway. Sleep took him as the last word slid off his tongue.

It was already morning when Hoseok stopped watching him and dozed off.

 

 

 

Sitting in the moondark turned out to be moreso just sitting in the dark. There was no silver halving the black. Not a single lunar beam. Kihyun shivered beside him, a small shadow clutching a thermos flask.

Hoseok leaned on his bent knees, head upturned to stare down the earthy red disc in the sky. The colour reminded Hoseok of blood, but the moon itself hovered above him harmless. It was as though it reflected all the blood it had drained over years while it also appeared bloodless in the black all around it.

Neck aching as he sat in the same position, Hoseok rubbed it and then outstretched his arm to take the thermos flask from Kihyun. He found his fingers frozen and clutching the tin too hard with the tips.

Instead of asking whether Kihyun was cold, Hoseok lifted himself up and crawled over to him. He sank behind Kihyun and wrapped him all up. He was trembling. Bony and brittle. The shell of Kihyun's mauled ear grazed Hoseok's nose, ice-water cold.

This was the time to stop. So naturally, Hoseok started.

He let his mouth fall open and closed it over Kihyun's earlobe.

Kihyun inhaled. “Remember when you came here?” he asked out of nowhere.

“How could I not,” said Hoseok, halting. He pressed his lips on the curled part of Kihyun's ear. “It's only been a year.”

“Sometimes I forget stuff that happened a year ago, but I remember what happened when I was six or sixteen.”

“I remember coming here,” said Hoseok.

“Why did you ask for me back then, out of all people?” Tranquil, Kihyun kept his face turned away from Hoseok. He could've been worshipping the eclipsed chunk of rock floating above, or outfacing it. He could've had no face at all and Hoseok wouldn't know.

“Not sure,” uttered Hoseok.

“Did Minhyuk tell you to ask for me?”

“Kind of.” He embraced Kihyun with all he had, his own body cracking. Being unseen unlocked a bold streak within Hoseok, and though he didn't battle with Kihyun the way he did when they were in bed, he still wanted to win over him. Keep him. “It was either you or some Hyunwoo guy.”

“Well. That would've put a damper or the welcoming party if you had asked for the dead one,” said Kihyun softly. “But it's not like anyone can really replace Minhyuk anyway,” he added in an unreadable tone that Hoseok wanted to pluck out of the air and burst open like a lychee and look at its contents, even if they were runny and messy and stained his hands.

But the meaning wasn't really that unreadable. Nobody could take Minhyuk's place. That was it.

Hoseok had tried enough times to know that there was no way to do it.

He fell into a clotty silence. Robins and mockingbirds spoke in his stead. He listened to their singing for awhile. It struck him as surreal. There were still some night birds left, and some bomb shelters, and some soldiers of the Resistance out there to be killed and cry in the night as those robins. People beat and breathed, some of them just a stringy mass of organs conditioned to go and be buried one day, for whatever cause. Even here. Even here there was still something.

Even in a country that had become a graveyard.

Hoseok would rather do without that sliver of hope. He coiled like a sheet of seaweed, like a burned piece of paper. He brought Kihyun closer and felt his spine click into the place where the seam of his rib cage ran.

“I wish I could replace him. Not _him_ , really, but what he was to you. What I was to him.”

A bony hand covered his.

It wasn't Hoseok who said it. It was Kihyun.

“It's like a half of you is gone when he is, isn't it,” continued Kihyun, calm words washing over Hoseok in ripples. “I'm not going to say that he was the better half, but he was a half of me, and then he was a half of you, and now we are both half-people.”

“That makes for a whole,” joked Hoseok, unsmiling.

“The others don't see a whole when they look at me. They only see what's missing. And I don't know how to tell them that...”

“Tell them what?” muttered Hoseok as he laid his head against Kihyun's so he wouldn't only hear his voice, but feel it too.

“Tell them that it's okay that it's growing back,” he said, “and that it won't take me away from them. I won't ever walk away from them.”

“Why would they think that you'll leave?”

Hoseok got embroiled in his own words and let them take him under.

“Because all they have is me.” Kihyun didn't turn towards him. He outfaced the eclipse, fingers linked with Hoseok's, and it looked like he wouldn't let go had the moon turned grey again. “And all I have is you.”

 


End file.
